Familiar Mercedes-Benz touches are obvious in the M-Class. The seats are wide, yet supportive, with thick, sturdy leather upholstery and more than enough bolstering for SUV driving. There's a traditional Mercedes look to the gauges, with two trip odometers and an ambient thermometer inside the speedometer. With the ML430 come buttons that memorize front seat positions and dark, glossy wood trim.
The M-Class follows the Mercedes tradition of placing two control stalks on the left side of the steering wheel: one for wipers and turn signals and the other for cruise control functions. Mercedes obviously thinks this is proper switch placement, yet it's very easy to hit the cruise stalk when you want to turn on a blinker, even after you're familiar with the distinction. Otherwise, the controls are easy to locate, and they work with a soft, satisfying click. Darker interior colors do better than light when it comes to giving the plastic and vinyl panels a Mercedes-grade appearance.
The M-Class's door sills sit only 18 inches above the ground. That's low step-in height by SUV standards, but the driver still sits tall above the pavement. The high seats, expansive glass, effective mirrors and fall-away hood combine for great visibility in all directions and a secure, confident feeling at the wheel.
The ML430's rear seat is one of the best in the sport-utility business. It's actually three individual buckets that can be folded separately to maximize passenger or cargo space. The seat bottoms are wide and supportive, and the seats slide about five inches fore and aft, increasing either legroom or cargo space.
With maximum capacity of 85.4 cubic feet, the M-Class offers more cargo volume than some compact sport-utilities. But it has considerably less than full-size luxury models such as the Lincoln Navigator and Cadillac Escalade. The ML430's payback when compared to those competitors is more maneuverability and better on-road performance.
Mercedes upgraded the M-Class interior last year, and it was a welcome change. A leather steering wheel and gearshift knob come standard and the interior is trimmed in real burl walnut.
Mercedes has tried to minimize production costs in the M-Class and longtime Mercedes owners might notice this in several ways. The seat controls are mounted on the seat bottom, rather than in a seat-shaped pattern on the door. The driver's seat can't be moved unless the ignition is on, so a tall driver must reach in and turn the key before moving the seat back. The ML430 has a conventional steel key, rather than the electronic type used in expensive Mercedes sedans, and it lacks separate temperature controls for each side of the forward cabin.
We drove the high-performance ML55 AMG.
You reach the limits of comfort in the handling early, because ? well, because it's a truck, and was never intended to do the things it's tweaked to do. AMG might be brilliant, but they're not miracle workers. Making the Mercedes E55 sedan handle like a Porsche, which AMG has done, is one thing; but making a tall box like the ML55 feel like much more than a refined tall box is apparently beyond mechanical expectations.
The suspension and shock absorber changes have dropped the ML55 by a mere 0.6 inches, from 69.9 inches tall to 69.3 (18.0 inches to 17.4 at step-in). Curb weight has been reduced by 167 pounds, which helps the center of gravity, but the ML55 is still twitchy up around the level of your ears. That's the main handling complaint; in fact, ironically, the head-toss might be more noticeable simply because with the stiffened suspension it's sharper. The amount might be less, but it's abrupt. On freeways with bends and imperfect surfaces (the Pennsylvania turnpike comes to mind), the ML55 reminds you that you've indeed gotten something for that $20,000 more than the ML430 price.
Unfortunately that sharpness is reflected in the ups and downs too, not just the side-to-sides. On top of that, you feel many bumps in your elbows, transmitted through the front wheels. You never lose the awareness that you're in a sophisticated quality vehicle, but when you're on a bumpy, winding two-lane with little elevation changes, it's a lot of work to drive.
The wide 285/50R18 Dunlop tires provide tons of grip, which might be part of the overall problem because they'll allow you to corner faster than the rest of the ML55 wants to. And because the ML55 doesn't lean now, thanks again to the tighter suspension, there's no real warning that you're going too fast, other than your own brain. Which might not be enough for some people.
But it's always a gas when you hammer the throttle. The ML55 accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 6.4 seconds compared to 8.0 seconds for the ML430, thanks to its bigger and more powerful engine: 5.5 liters versus 4.3, 342 horsepower versus 268. Top speed is electronically limited to 155 mph, although even on the Autobahn, we wouldn't want to go that fast in anything that high.
It's the 376 foot-pounds of torque that you love most. Though the big chrome tips under the rear bumper look sexy, the ML55's exhaust is quite muted. The most aural fun you can have is keeping it in second gear and driving hard through slow twisty sections, listening to the rise and fall of the engine's deep Benz growl.
The five-speed "Touch Stick" automatic transmission is a joy. The Mercedes linkage system is perfectly simple: it starts out in Drive, and if you downshift one time, you've put yourself in the Touch Stick mode. Left on the lever is down, right is up. You're back in Drive when you upshift into it. And there's a digital display on the dash indicating the gear you're in.
AMG has also tweaked the five-speed electronic transmission. The standard Mercedes reluctance to upshift when you're going real slow is still there-a computer decides you either don't want to shift or shouldn't. But the beauty is that when you accelerate to pass, it downshifts so smoothly all you feel is a surge of power, as if a turbocharger were kicking in.
And AMG has outdone itself with the brakes. The ML55 may not improve the ML430's handling the way the E55 improves the E430's, but it does a better job than the E55 with the feel of the brakes. Brakes don't get any bigger than the 13.6-inch front and 13.0-inch rear discs on the ML55, yet nothing about the bomb-proofing can be felt in the pedal.
The ML430 doesn't offer the performance of the ML55, but it accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 8 seconds flat, making it one of the quickest SUVs you can buy. (And it costs $20,000 less.) Even more impressive is the 4.3-liter V8's flexibility. It works beautifully with the sophisticated five-speed automatic. Slam the accelerator at any speed: In a heartbeat the transmission downshifts and the 2.25-ton ML430 gains velocity, making quick, stress-free work of passing tractor trailers on two-lane roads. And it gets much better fuel economy (16/20 mpg for ML430 vs. 14/17 for ML55).
Longtime Mercedes drivers will feel a familiar dead spot in the steering when the wheel is centered. Turn the wheel left or right, however, and the tactile sensation (what enthusiast drivers call feedback) builds quickly and evenly. Sedan-style four-wheel independent suspension gives the ML430 an impressively smooth ride and handling that's quite good for a heavy SUV. A driver can feel the M-Class's weight if he or she yanks the steering wheel in sharp, rapid swoops -- the ML43O can lean heavily in emergency lane change maneuvers, for example. Yet it's prone to neither excessive pushing at the front end nor jittery slides in the rear. Hold your breath a second and it bites down and follows aggressive steering commands without much fuss. In parking lots, steering effort is relatively high, meaning you'll have to use a little elbow grease when parking.
The wide, all-season tires are surprisingly grippy on dry asphalt, and stopping power is impressive. The brake pedal has a slightly spongy feel, but in full-panic stops the ML430 slows faster than almost any SUV in production.
The M-Class lacks a hand brake or locking differentials -- tools experienced off-road drivers sometimes rely on. Yet with 8.4 inches of ground clearance, it's capable of traversing terrain that few SUV buyers are likely to challenge. The low four-wheel-drive range allows the ML430 to creep up and down seriously steep inclines, while electronic power distribution delivers grip on both soft, sloppy earth or hard, rocky, uneven ground. The electronics apply the brakes on wheels that are slipping, and then send most of the power to those that are gripping. The M-Class can creep forward even if only one wheel has a bit of traction.
Mercedes' Electronic Stability Program, standard with the V8, helps manage understeer (pushing at the front of the car) or oversteer (a loose rear end), particularly on dirt, gravel or slippery pavement. ESP applies brakes to individual wheels to help turn the vehicle evenly whenever it detects a skid.
There aren't many vehicles that can carry five passengers to a chic restaurant downtown, or up the hill to a hideaway in the woods, with the same degree of comfort, luxury and style. This doesn't come cheap, of course. With a few options, the ML430 we tested cost nearly $47,000. Not long ago, paying that kind of money for a truck was almost unheard of.